


birth and death of the sea

by choir



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 06:36:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choir/pseuds/choir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Ja’far had to describe Sinbad, it would be an endless, open sea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	birth and death of the sea

If Ja’far had to describe Sinbad, it would be an endless, open sea.

There are reasons, of course, ones in which he cannot accurately describe. Trust, twining gently around their wrists, and love; full and powerful and terrifying. He tries to remember what it was like before he had Sinbad’s hands strong against the small of his back, before he could look up into a smile that rivaled the sun. He thinks that there was darkness, before this time, when he crawled through deserts with knives against his ribs, outlined in blood. Red, at the corner of his eyes; black, under the soles of his feet. The skin of a man who fought him for bread on his legs; whip marks spreading a tree along the bones of his body. Ja’far remembers his assignment that time, the head of a man--a child?-- and how he was hungry, a starved doe on weak muscles held up by anger, too beaten down to resist.

But: _stay_ , Sinbad had whispered against the outline of his ear, washing at the scars and cracked red on his back. A cloth, somehow symbolizing comfort and compassion, sliding along each vertebrae, engraving into him something that only Sinbad had to offer. Ja’far never said yes, to this day still has not, yet finds himself bowing at Sinbad’s feet, hand against his chest. Not because of royalty or obligation, no, but because Sinbad sighs when he does this and drags him back onto his feet so they can stare eye to eye.

Ja’far had meant to kill him, once; felt Sinbad’s life, his pulse, against his ear when he held a pointed blade at the artery crawling down his neck. Even then, even then; Sinbad whispered _stay_ and held onto Ja’far’s wrists and made him follow, teased sunburns into his skin with the sun as they traveled and gentle bruises with his mouth at night.

Against the palm of Sinbad’s hand (rough, calloused fingers), and against his back, where he could still do it, he thought, could still slip his fingers through his shoulder blades, rip out Sinbad’s heart and tear his head from his shoulders and live without regret. Perhaps in another lifetime he had, held Sinbad’s red heart in his hands and let the blood drip from his fingers, staining the sand a permanent red.

But, in this life; he felt it from within the veins of his palm, and thought that surely that was enough, that it would always be enough. So he stood against Sinbad's back, earned scars when he did and lost everything when he did, too.

Questions bury themselves under Ja’far skin, because of this, and he thinks of asking Sinbad some days; for years and years (some a blur, some so distinct he cannot believe they are so long gone) of loyalty and love, against the pulse of their skin. Yet Sinbad never asks, never questions, never sways, as though he was born with Ja’far at his hip and was taught and raised in the same way.

Instead, he whispers _I love you_ into the open air between them when he is so deep inside Ja’far neither of them can breathe, and Ja’far still trembles at the words when he throws his head back, neck flushed a different form of red (so different from their beginning, when it soured and left them aching). Squirms when Sinbad palms his cock and mutters _stay_ against the scar on his chest, the same and so much different than what he had whispered for so many days prior, stretching back further than their lives, intertwined in nothing but pure legend. After this Ja’far does not question, does not dream of the day when he perhaps will understand and know the answer.

He does not need to know, as he holds it within him. During the month of the sea all those years ago, when it swelled and overtook the black desert Ja’far had created for himself, he wondered if it was worth it, to drop his weapons at the feet of a boy, then, and dedicate his life to someone who had done something as trivial as give him bread and a bath. He could not scorn the thought of Sinbad, however; Sinbad, sword in hand; Sinbad, whose back, even after all those years, fit so surely against his; Sinbad, whose hands curled gently around loose wisps of his hair.

The sea— oh, how it folded and bended around him, then. When Sinbad exhaled, the water lingered and passed over Ja’far; silent, untold, breathing. Cool to the touch, malleable, and Ja’far still swears to this day that that month, the month of Sinbad’s quiet breathing, is when they formed into a single entity. An entity of promises, engraved into their skin, and the gentle wading into a stream of endless permanence.

 

Sinbad is his ocean, his birth and his death.


End file.
